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On August 7, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) found two senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, guilty of crimes against humanity. For many victims who have been waiting for 35 years, the judgment still felt like bittersweet justice.

JAKARTA, Nov. 15, 2011—Experts and stakeholders from Cambodia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Burma, Timor-Leste, Thailand, and Nepal, along with international experts are gathering in Jakarta’s Hotel Atlet from November 15–16 to discuss the need for progress on prosecuting serious crimes in Asia.

Transitional justice practitioners and activists from 18 different countries gathered in Barcelona to attend the 6th Intensive Course on Truth Commissions, organized by the ICTJ and the Barcelona International Peace Resource Center on September 29 - October 3.

This opinion piece by Eduardo González, director of the Truth and Memory program at ICTJ, asks: can you build a solid, legitimate democracy on the sands of silence, or does truth provide a more trustful foundation?

This transitional justice review of Cambodia addresses both the achievements of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) and the persisting concerns of political influence, corruption and delays that have the potential to undermine the judicial process. The review c...

The Cambodian diaspora in France and Belgium has been actively following the development of efforts to prosecute Khmer Rouge officials responsible for crimes committed in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. Diasporas have assumed a new and important role in the judicial and political aren...

ICTJ welcomes the 6th National Event of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, part of the TRC’s journey towards completion of its mandate: to learn the truth about what happened in the residential schools, and to inform all Canadians about this history.

“Residential schools affected everything about how we live. They targeted and destroyed our strong family unit, the basic foundation of our communities. They destroyed the glue that holds us together—love, respect and sharing.” These words, spoken by Charlie Furlong, a community leader of the Gwich'in people of Canada’s Northwest Territories, sum up the chilling legacy of the country’s policy of forced assimilation of indigenous cultures implemented through a system of Indian Residential Schools (IRS) from the 1870s to 1998.

Treatment of historical legacies of discrimination against Aboriginal groups in Canada (First Nations, Inuit, Métis) currently focuses on settlement for abuses committed against Aboriginal children in educational institutions known as “Indian Residential Schools” (IRSs), which pursued...

From March 27 to 30, some 20,000 Canadians gathered in Edmonton, Alberta, for the final national event of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). Established in 2008, the TRC is now entering a new stage: the writing of its final report based on the more than 6,500 statements it has gathered.

Indigenous populations throughout the world are widely recognized as groups affected by political and economic marginalization. Countries that have used truth commissions to examine patterns of exclusion—including Chile, Guatemala and Peru—have found clear links between racism, politi...

As the first national truth commission to be created in an established democracy, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is a bold experiment. It is also the first TRC to focus exclusively on crimes committed against children and indigenous groups.

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) released its interim report and a new historical publication titled They Came for the Children in Vancouver today. The TRC was established in 2008 to examine and make public the truth about Canada’s former Indian Residential Schools, a system designed to forcibly assimilate aboriginal children. From 1874 to 1996 more than 150,000 children were taken from their families and placed in church-run schools. They were prohibited from speaking their native languages and practicing cultural traditions, and physical, sexual, and emotional violence was commonplace.

Elementary and high school teachers and students in the Montréal area gathered today for “Education Day,” an event convened by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) to kick off the TRC’s historic Québec National Event, scheduled from April 24 to 27, 2013.

The resignation and indictment of President Otto Pérez Molina for corruption was a significant victory over impunity in Guatemala. In an interview with journalist Carlos Dada, we discussed how recent developments in Guatemala could impact other countries in Central America, such as Honduras and El Salvador.

Although youth are key political and social stakeholders who have much to contribute to—and gain from—transitional justice processes, they often remain marginalized from such processes or are given only a limited and predetermined space in which to engage. In recent years, the peacebu...

This joint report by ICTJ and the Kofi Annan Foundation explores common assumptions about why truth commissions are created in the wake of armed conflict and what factors make them more likely to succeed – or fail. It arises from a high-level symposium hosted by the two organizations ...

ICTJ provides constructive comments on the draft Internal Rules for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). While the draft Internal Rules provide greater procedural clarity for the ECCC proceedings, ICTJ lists several concerns in five areas that must be focused o...

This report aims to help practitioners in the transitional justice field to understand the experience of establishing and operating hybrid courts and to address some common assumptions about these entities. To do so, it looks at hybrid or mixed courts in practice, drawing on experienc...

In the quest to bring perpetrators of massive crimes to justice, international courts should be considered only as a last resort. Efforts to establish rule of law require the development of national capacity to prosecute the most serious crimes. On 25 and 26 October 2012, leading international actors from the judicial, rule of law, and development sectors will convene at the Greentree Estate in Manhasset, New York for the third Greentree Conference on Complementarity. The meeting aims to examine the needs of and challenges to national prosecutions for the most serious crimes in four countries: Ivory Coast, the DRC, Colombia, and Guatemala.

The Documentation Affinity Group (DAG) was established in 2005 by ICTJ and five partner organizations as a peer-to-peer network with a primary focus on human rights documentation. Documenting Truth collects the best practices derived from the work of the DAG organizations in Cambodia,...

On International Children’s Day, ICTJ reaffirms the importance of an active role of children and youth in transitional justice processes, such as truth-seeking, criminal accountability, and reparations programs. In the aftermath of societal upheaval, the voices of children and youth are often absent from peace negotiations and subsequent transitional processes. Though children and youth must be able to receive adequate care and necessary rehabilitation, they must not be regarded only as victims of massive human rights abuses: they are rights-bearing members of a society trying to confront the past, and active participants in the process of social change aiming for a new future. It is in the best interest of children and youth, as well as the societies in which they live, to participate in transitional justice processes, devised to reestablish rule of law and civic trust in the societies to which they belong.

ICTJ partnered with the Center for Global Affairs at New York University to explore how political will of international and national actors impacts national war crimes proceedings. The panel examined four diverse country scenarios - the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Serbia, Iraq, and Guatemala.

Forced disappearance is a crime against humanity. The decisions made by politicians and officials authorizing such practices in different countries cannot be justified legally or morally. They must be held to account and be shown for what they are: enemies of a civilized society.

The new film "Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll" explains the events of 1960s and 70s through the eyes of the musicians and artists who ushered in a new era of sound, only to be silenced too soon. As the world commemorates the 40th anniversary of the genocide in Cambodia, the new documentary presents the untold story of how their music managed to survive.